One of the usual press gambits for an art fair is to have an insurance firm estimate the gross value of all works brought to the fair. Of course, a small number of the works account for the vast majority of that value. But Bloomberg’s Scott Reyburn reports that one gallery may also have an inordinate effect on the overall value of the 306-booth fair.
That gallery, of course, would be Gagosian:
This year, Gagosian brought an estimated $250 million of works to a fair that has inventory valued at about $2 billion.
That would put the average booth’s value at $6.5m or mean that Gagosian is nearly 40 times the size of the average gallery.
Hedge Funder Cohen, Basel VIPs Eye $78 Million Rothko (Bloomberg)